Citizens, not road engineers, list 38 craters on BMC portal

MUMBAI: If BMC's road engineers are to be believed, there is no pothole in the city.

All the 38 potholes reported on the BMC's pothole-tracking website, www.voiceofcitizens.com, have come from active citizens, none from the road engineers.

"This year, the entire onus of detecting potholes and getting them filled is with the ward-level road engineers. They know how to operate the pothole-tracking software, but haven't listed a single pit yet. All complaints have come from citizens," said a civic official.

But road engineers argued that they haven't started reporting potholes on the portal no work order have been issued to contractors. "What is the point of reporting potholes, when the contractor will not fill them yet," said a road engineer.

Last week, the civic standing committee last week cleared a proposal to appoint seven contractors to fill potholes. On Monday, TOI reported that the BMC is yet to award the work orders to these contractors.

"What is the point of the BMC holding pre-monsoon meetings, when it hasn't issued the work orders," asked activist Nikhil Desai.

Civic officials said after the proposal was cleared, the BMC issued a letter of acceptance to the contractors, after which they have to complete formalities, like furnishing bank guarantees and making security deposits, which will take another week. Only after all the formalities are completed, the work order will be issued.

To sort out the confusion, additional municipal commissioner in charge of roads S V R Srinivas has called a meeting of all ward officers on Wednesday.